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The right-hander from Rialto was on the mound for Game 4 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night, of all reasons, because of Don Mattingly’s gut.

The Dodgers’ manager met with his staff Monday to discuss whether Nolasco or Zack Greinke, who started Game 1 of the series, would take the ball Tuesday with the Dodgers trailing the best-of-seven series 2-1.

Actually, the Dodgers hadn’t even won Game 3 when Mattingly decided that Nolasco would start no matter what.

“I wasn’t feeling great about” starting Greinke, Mattingly said. “I wasn’t feeling 100 percent about it. It was on my mind all day yesterday, all the time here at the ballpark yesterday early on. It was on my mind: ‘What was the right thing to do?’ After we met, it got a chance to keep sinking in. At the beginning it wasn’t feeling great. About the third inning I said to (pitching coach) Rick (Honeycutt) ‘I’m going with Ricky tomorrow.’

“That was it.”

Greinke declined comment when asked for his feelings about pitching on short rest.

For Nolasco, the problem was the opposite: He had not started a game in 20 days, or faced live batters in a game for 16 days. An 80-pitch simulated game last Wednesday at Dodger Stadium was his most recent experience off a major-league mound.

“I treated that like a game,” he said.

Nolasco was supposed to start Game 4 of the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves last week, but was scratched the night before in favor of Clayton Kershaw.

“Ricky’s in a bad spot,” Mattingly admitted. “I think that’s what happens to this guy that’s your fourth starter in the playoffs. It always happens to him, he’s not pitching a lot.”

Nolasco was fine at the outset Tuesday. He did not allow a hit until the third inning, a single through the second-base hole by Daniel Descalso. But a one-out RBI-double by Matt Carpenter, and a two-out home run by Matt Holliday, hung three runs on Nolasco’s ledger and put him in line for the loss.

His final line in his first career playoff game: Four innings pitched, three hits, three runs – all earned – one walk and four strikeouts.

Mind your manners

A day after the Cardinals complained about the way Yasiel Puig and Adrian Gonzalez celebrated hits, the back-and-forth about baseball etiquette continued at Dodger Stadium.

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When Gonzalez doubled to right field in the fourth inning Monday, he did his usual celebration, clasped hands to the sky, like an explosion. And then he did it again and again and again. St. Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright compared Gonzalez after the game to Mickey Mouse – according to one report, over something Gonzalez said at third base and not his demonstration at second.

Greinke, asked if he would have a problem with players celebrating as an opposing pitcher, said, “no comment, since he’s on my team.”

Cardinals pitcher Joe Kelly didn’t have a problem with it.

“I mean, it’s the playoffs,” Kelly said. “It’s an exciting time. Every other sport celebrates. I think you’re just in that moment. I mean, I’ve had a lot of energy.”

Lasorda gets mulligan

Tommy Lasorda threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Make that pitches. Lasorda first threw wide and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly couldn’t get to it. So, Lasorda asked for the ball again, and the next time threw over the plate.

The Dodgers showed a video montage of Kirk Gibson’s World Series Game 1 home run in 1988 and then-manager Lasorda jumping and running in celebration.

Notable

Major League Baseball is close to approving the Dodgers’ planned regional sports network in time for next season, Bloomberg reported. Team officials have long considered the approval process a formality. ... Golfer Rickie Fowler, a native of Murrieta Valley, attended the game wearing a Cardinals hat. Fowler said he became a Cardinals fan by virtue of the team holding its spring training camp in Fowler’s hometown of Jupiter, Fla. … The Van Nuys Airport-based Condor Squadron, or World War II vintage AT-6s, will fly over today’s Dodger game. … Holliday’s home run in the third inning was the first of the series. Not since the 1948 World Series had a playoff series gone three games without a ball leaving the park. The home run was conservatively estimated at 426 feet. … The catcher’s interference ruling against A.J. Ellis in the sixth inning was just the 10th in postseason history, according to the website baseball-reference.com. … Blue rally towels were distributed for Game 4 at Dodger Stadium. The white rally towels handed out for Game 3 will take a curtain call in Game 5.